Its a Circle

During a Business Insider interview with Mathias Dopfer, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explains why he feels we should stop aiming for work-life balance but instead take a more holistic approach.

Bezos believes that we need to stop attempting to find “balance” within our personal and professional lives as balance implies a strict trade-off or zero sum game between the two. Bozos sees a more “holistic” relationship between work and life outside the office will improve both our productivity and our wellbeing.

This excerpt is from that interview . The full interview maybe accessed by HERE

“This work-life harmony thing is what I try to teach young employees and actually senior executives at Amazon too. But especially the people coming in. I get asked about work-life balance all the time. And my view is, that’s a debilitating phrase because it implies there’s a strict trade-off. And the reality is, if I am happy at home, I come into the office with tremendous energy. And if I am happy at work, I come home with tremendous energy. It actually is a circle; it’s not a balance. And I think that is worth everybody paying attention to it. You never want to be that guy — and we all have a coworker who’s that person — who as soon as they come into a meeting they drain all the energy out of the room. You can just feel the energy go whoosh! You don’t want to be that guy. You want to come into the office and give everyone a kick in their step.”

A previous post here at Inspired Engagement discussed a similar path sharing ways to strive to build an “integrated” life. You can see that post HERE